


Regional Metamorphism

by Tethys_resort



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Collateral Damage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Halls of Mandos, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23826367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tethys_resort/pseuds/Tethys_resort
Summary: Maeglin watches the tapestries and waits for his punishment to arrive.  The Halls of Waiting weren’t exactly what he expected.  He's not sure what he expected.
Relationships: Aredhel/Eöl (Tolkien), Erestor/Glorfindel (Tolkien)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 101





	Regional Metamorphism

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for: mental health (poor), child abuse, child neglect, gory deaths, domestic violence, mention of suicidal ideation  
> As always, if you have questions please send me a message.

Time stretched strangely here. The moments and hours after his arrival were stretched through the tapestries. Elves burning, or ripped to shreds. Or dying as he had, plunging down to the ground screaming. The fortunate died on impact. He barely remembered the final fight or fall to his death. It was all hidden within a haze of pain and hatred. Tuor’s fierce gray eyes at that last blow were clear.

He watched carefully as his men, faithful to the House of the Mole, were massacred by Tuor and the House of the Wing. The survivors limped back to Morgoth’s lines for shelter and were murdered by Morgoth’s troops. 

He had laughed, watching King Turgon die within his tower. King Turgon deserved everything he had gotten, he just wished Tuor had chosen to stay next to his father in law. 

He hadn’t expected so many of the Lords to die fighting.

He watched through the tapestry as Lord Duilin died on the wall. The arrow that got him was a Balrog’s made of flame. After archery practice, even if practice was miserable, Lord Duilin had always invited him to dinner and seated him at the head table among his children of the same age. At least it had been fast. He watched as a dragon ripped Lord Penlod’s head from his body. Lord Penlod was stern and always impatient but had been free with his extensive library, allowing him to read anything and copy down the maps. 

Lord Ecthelion and Lord Glorfindel had been the worst. 

They had been the first to welcome him to the hidden city; King Turgon had asked them to show him around. Over the years, the pair had helped him find a Steward to run his House and taught him to fight. Despite his rage, he wept watching Lord Ecthelion dive into the water fleeing the fire. Lord Ecthelion’s eldest son had screamed and Lord Glorfindel had dragged him onwards with his soldiers. None of the House of the Fountain and only a few of the House of the Golden Flower had made it down the tunnel though. Lord Glorfindel had almost made it over the pass to quasi-safety. He watched as Lord Glorfindel’s hand twitched one last time as he lay crushed and bleeding out next to the Balrog he had slain. 

That was the last straw, and he fled into the dark and silence. 

He spent time simply sitting in the silence, right in the middle of a corridor. Apparently no one else existed in these Halls. He had seen so many others die, during the fighting and through the tapestries. But they certainly weren’t here. Their faces and deaths were vivid in his memory though, and he wondered if it had been worth it. 

He hadn’t thought it would go that way: he had visualized Idril finally his, and the city and its Lords forced to respect him for once. And King Turgon forced to admit that he was special and wonderful and above all worthy. 

Maybe that was to be his fate and punishment? To slowly be driven mad by the silence and watching elves die because of him? A replay of his greatest mistakes until he stepped into the Void with a sense of gratitude? 

Perhaps next time the tapestries would show all the times he had disappointed his Amya and Ada. All the times his Ada had been forced to deal with his misbehavior by punishing Amya and him. Amya urging him to run silent and fast as they went north toward Gondolin. She had always told him stories of a white city in which all your dreams came true: elves singing for joy, libraries full of books, mountains full of every type of mineral imaginable. The ability to craft whatever your heart desired, just because it was pretty. 

He decided to never go back to the tapestries.

The walls were smooth, featureless and endless, he could walk them for entire Ages and never figure out how far he was actually going. It was like a played out mine, endless loops of Hall. But with the new problem that the tapestries always appeared around the next bend if he thought of them. Unlike the mines, there was nothing he could Sing to here. Finally bored, he went back to the tapestries. They showed a landscape barely familiar. The mountains were Beleriand, but fire gushed from cracks in the ground and the trees were dying. He walked down the long series, puzzled and looking for elves. 

He found none, just scene after scene of empty destruction. 

Finally, down at the end, he found a tapestry full of Men and paused to watch. They appeared to be in a canyon somewhere. The water was a rust colored, scummy rivulet at the bottom, surrounded by dying cattails. The smith recognized water that had been tainted by mine waste. Sheer wasteful carelessness. 

The Men had set up primary and secondary defenses in a cul-de-sac of the canyon. All were heavily armed. In the overhang of an old cave there was a small cook fire and a group of injured. A female obviously acting as a healer carefully changed bandages, pausing occasionally to check on some brews steeping next to the fire. As he watched, he realized she was the leader of this band. A scout came up and spoke to her, his hands gesturing up and down the canyon. The sunlines around her eyes deepened and she looked wearier but she straightened, patted the scout on the shoulder and called something to the rest. They immediately began to efficiently pack up the camp. 

A pack emblazoned with a diamond pattern caught his attention, he didn’t recognize the device but it was definitely one of the Edain ones. But that was quickly forgotten as he stared at the stone slab exposed by the moved pack. Underneath was the sign of the House of the Mole. With slow trickling horror he recognized it as one of the western mountain mines, it had produced silver and copper in a lode that spidered with quartz through the strata above the granite batholiths that made up the lower canyon. He remembered the canyon as lush and green with ferns and moss. The river had contained plump trout that had been a special treat. 

He stepped backward, trying to deny the sigil carved deep into the broken slab. 

After another glance at the desolation and band of Men packing up, he turned and fled back into the darkness of the rest of the Halls. Far to the back somewhere he found a cubby, he couldn’t imagine what it was supposed to be used for but it was just the right size to curl up and try to sleep. He drifted off into dreams of forge work and the glow of metal being smelted and poured. 

After that, he fell into a pattern. To awake and go look at the tapestries. Walk in circles through the endless halls as he thought. Then, when he felt tired, to wander back to his cubby and rest. 

Unlike when he was alive, here he always dreamt of good things: his forge, his Amya telling stories, listening to the miners sing, exploring the woods, the intricately detailed maps he had drawn piece by piece while exploring. 

The tapestry subject matter varied: one a scene of the Sea washing amid a stand of dead and desiccated tree stumps. Another was field after field of flowers, spring in the mountains somewhere. One time, a tapestry showed a great building being constructed and he wondered idly if he knew any of the elves doing the work. More of a city whose planning he rather approved of: obviously the planner was a smith or maker of some sort. Men walked the streets in bright sunshine. Horrified he watched as Gorthaur in Man-shape walked through the city, and he yelled at the tapestry and groped at the ephemeral weave. When his hands slid through he fled in horror. Some other being was making his mistake over and he couldn’t bear to watch. 

Mercifully, that tapestry only showed a deep forest much like his childhood home when he went back to it again. Less mercifully, he never saw the city again. He suspected they were gone, too. 

The elves of Gondolin had screamed in terror as they were killed. And he had laughed. 

He had tried not to cry after Amya had died. His uncle had held him and wept though. Lord Glorfindel, Lord Ecthelion, and Lord Egalmoth had gone out of their way to invite him on their adventures and projects even when it was obvious he had no interests in common with the Lords. 

Determined to accept his punishment, he stomped back to the tapestries. Only to be stymied when they all showed different views of a small fortress in the mountains. As he watched, the dark haired elf lord running the place walked the corridors to an office and did an unreasonable amount of paperwork. Later the elf lord walked through another section to a healing hall and he had a boring time watching the elf lord make some sort of poultice. Other elves wandered through the images: a group of musicians, probably practicing. A lone gardener who seemed to be spending the day carefully winding onto a trellis the vines of a plant equally determined to escape. 

And then, to his shock, Lord Glorfindel strolling through a passageway, across a courtyard with an incredibly tiny suspension bridge over an equally tiny stream, and into what looked like a dining hall. He sprawled into a seat, and with a wide smile, kissed the grim looking elf now sitting next to him. The elf rolled his eyes, smiled slightly and passed Lord Glorfindel a tray of little pastries. 

He glanced down the row of tapestries, this was the first time he had seen someone he knew. Abruptly his stomach lurched and he wondered how long he had been dead. 

He staggered back to his cubby and curled into a ball. Lord Glorfindel seemed to be happy in those tapestries, he wondered if that male was Lord Glorfindel’s mate. Lord Glorfindel had been the only other unmarried elf lord in Gondolin; there had been rumors that he and Uncle Turgon had argued on a regular basis about him getting married. In the House of the Mole there had been a few bonded pairs that went against the Laws and certainly weren’t going to produce elflings. He had just ignored them, it was easier. 

Elves were supposed to be re-embodied eventually. Amya might be alive out there too. 

The thought filled him with shame and he curled tighter. He would just stay here until Dagor Dagorath. 

If he hadn’t already been a soul in the Halls, he would have died of shock when a voice spoke to him for the first time since his death. “Maeglin? Do you want to go out?”

The speaker was a gray shadow, with soft sad eyes full of tears. As he watched, a tear fell. It evaporated before it hit the floor. One of the Valar, then. He opened his mouth and was slightly surprised to hear his voice come out. He said, “No.” And then curled up again. 

There was a rustle and the Vala was gone. 

He lay curled up, trying to decide where he had gone wrong in his life. Probably with his birth and bloodlines, no one in Gondolin had had anything complimentary to say of his Ada. Especially after they had seen the marks on his back. Uncle Turgon had been furious and raving after he found out about the broken arm. Everyone had told him how much he resembled his Amya. And praised his studying, smith work and mining. He had made friends.

Somehow he had gotten it all wrong there though. Somehow he had been the one that warped and snapped. Morgoth had only been the last push toward evil. 

Solid rock could be fractured with water. The easiest way was to build a bonfire on the rock, then pour cold water on it. There would be a “snap” and the rock would crack along hidden weaknesses. After that initial crack, it was only a matter of repeating the process until the rock was reduced enough to be removed with a hammer and bucket. An excellent way of clearing passes through the Encircling Mountains, not as good inside a mine. 

Maybe as good an explanation as any of how he had screwed up so badly. 

The Vala returned sometime later. “Maeglin? Come see Valinor, it is time.”

Without lifting his head, he growled back, “No.” The Vala stood there for the longest time before vanishing to wherever she went when she wasn’t asking impossible things of him. 

Morgoth had hurt him, laughed at him as he screamed and made him relive everything he had ever failed at. But he was still the one who had done something unforgivable.

It was not the gray Vala who showed up next. This colorless Vala towered, and his footsteps Sang back through the walls of this place. It was no surprise when the being stared down at him and said, “I am Namo, Judge and Doomsman of the Valar. Get up and look in the tapestries.” The Halls echoed the Vala’s voice as if they were part of him.

He wasn’t sure what would happen if he disobeyed, but his legs simply carried him onward back down the halls to the tapestries in their line. He eyed them warily as he walked toward them, this was probably his punishment, arrived at last. 

The corridors whispered, “Watch….”

So he did, walking slowly up and down the line. He didn’t know any of the elves in the weavings, but he watched carefully as they were lured and dragged away through the dark. They were imprisoned and tortured until they broke. And then they died, or healed and were broken again. It happened over and over until the few survivors were twisted parodies: they looked like elves but were somehow not. They smiled under the light of the stars. They sang as they walked home. Then they murdered the families they had returned to and walked back out into the endless night again. They gathered back with Morgoth and laughed with insanity as they were broken and twisted more, eventually ageing and dying like Mortals when the last of their light was lost. 

Namo stood behind him, staring down at the top of his head. The corridor rumbled like an earthquake, “How do I punish them?”

Maeglin, finally willing to call himself that again, whirled and stared up at the Vala before whispering back, “They didn’t deserve any of that. Can you fix them?”

Namo reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him up into the air at eye level. Maeglin kicked helplessly at the air. “We help so that they will fix themselves as all do. Go out.” Namo flung him towards a wall and he closed his eyes waiting for the impact. 

When he opened them, the gray Vala stood there. Her head tilted slightly and she said, “You are free to make your choices again now. Would you carry all your scars to Valinor? Or leave them here?” 

He gaped. She smiled and continued, “Maeglin, son of Aredhel and Eol, who would you have meet you? Your family has waited for you long years.”

“Family?”

“Your mother, your uncles, your aunts, your cousins, your nephews, your grandparents and great-grandparents. Your family.”

His stomach clenched and the room spun slightly, his Amya would be so disappointed in him. Uncle Turgon would hate him. “My name isn’t Maeglin, its Lomion!” he blurted out. He took a breath, “And I don’t want anyone to meet me.” 

The smile or tears did not fade. “Very well Lomion. Walk, you are free. Welcome to Valinor.”

He stepped into the sunshine and only then noticed that he had a body again. He hadn’t really noticed its absence. There was clothing on a table, and a pack of supplies. There was even a good pair of boots in his size.

Perfect, he’ll go prospecting in the mountains while he thinks a little more. 


End file.
